George Galloway and Gayatri Pertiwi, “Sputnik: Orbiting the World with George Galloway (Episode 4)” (RT.com, December 2013)
In this episode, the Galloways enquire into institutional racism in the United Kingdom. First off, Gayatri Pertiwi tours the streets of London collecting opinions of the general public on whether they consider Britain to be a racist country; not surprisingly, she finds the responses depend very much on the perceptions and experiences of the individuals she stops. Taken together, the responses point to an underlying racial prejudice that persists thanks to a worsening economic situation, a rise in social inequality and deliberate fanning by the nation’s media and institutions including the Cameron government, the police and the court system.
Galloway interviews social and political activist Lee Jasper who wrote a report on racism in Britain. Jasper reveals that racism is deeply embedded in current government policies and government agencies and that this is generating wide consequences throughout society. The racism is directed not only against black British and Asian British (“Asian” in this context refers to people whose antecedents come from the Indian subcontinent) but also against travellers, Roma, Bulgarians and Romanians. Especially worrying is how racism has become rife in the police force and the law courts.
Next up is Stephen Norris, a former London Mayor candidate and member of the Conservative Party, who discusses racism in the police force. He and Galloway refer to various scandals that have dogged the police including the death of Mark Duggan in police custody in 2011 which set off riots across Britain and agree that the police have not dealt with these scandals sufficiently enough that perpetrators have been arraigned and charged with serious crimes. Particularly alarming is the extent to which police supply information to a greedy press in exchange for money.
The Galloways sum up the episode by canvassing Twitter responses on the extent of institutional racism in the UK. They find that most people agree that while Britain is much less racist than, say, France or the Netherlands, and indeed most other countries in western Europe, the situation is worsening; one respondent says that the media is stoking fear of immigrants and blacks among the general public. Galloway himself observes that as the economy declines and people compete for a shrinking share of jobs, racism will increase and politicians will whip it up for what it’s worth as they see votes in it.
This is a highly informative episode on how racism has become resurgent in a country under enormous social and economic pressure, and how governments and media collude in dividing people and encouraging mutual hostility and distrust among them, the better to control them and profit from their divisions and suffering. The racism comes at a time when the Cameron government is floundering in its management of the economy and government, and needs something to divert public attention away from its general incompetence and isolation from the public (several of Cameron’s Cabinet ministers have little real-world experience in industry and are basically career politicians and party bureaucrats), and its genuflections before powerful hidden corporate interests. The suspicion that in spite of the tapping scandals at News Corporation the Cameron government continues to work secretly with the Murdoch-owned media for cash is never far away. At the same time, the Galloways and their interviewees do not offer any suggestions as to how racial prejudice can be eradicated from the police and judiciary. At the very least, this last episode in the Galloways’ Sputnik series serves to alert people to a deep and ongoing problem in British society.